Redshirted!
by Facepalmistry
Summary: Because he really, REALLY should have known better. (And because even after nearly 200 years, Dark Willow has hobbies!) YAXHF, with a crossover which has definitely never been done before - the original Exile: Escape from the Pit (under Avernum because there's no Exile cross-category).
1. Redshirted!

**Disclaimer:** I'm not Joss Whedon. Or Jeff Vogel. Or affiliated in any way with their associated corporations, let alone their intellectual property rights. Rights which I clearly respect less than they do, what with totally cribbing Vogel's opening text-boxes.

 **Number:** 1/1 (for story proper; omakes for anything following, of which there will be at least one chapter posted)

 **Rating: T**

 **Warnings:** _mild_ violence  & language, _gratuitous_ character death (refer to the summary), YAHF (crossover explained in the ending a/n – and no, it's almost certainly _not_ the one the chap-title might make you think), _slight_ bashing of Willow and Cordelia (though that's down to interpretation, I just see it as IC in the changed context).

 **Summary:** Because he really, _really_ should have known better. A Divergence Series: Bad End fic.

(For a good end, which would never happen in my Divergence series because YAHF never _ever_ ends well therein, any following chapters can basically be treated as omakes.)

 **Pairings:** general (canon for episode).

 **A/N:** …Yeah, it was only a matter of time before I wrote a YAXHF. In my defence I can only say that at least I had the common decency to kill off the poor bastard while I was at it.  
The main idea behind this fic came about after I thought back to the Halloween episode and recalled that Ethan's shop was chock-full of generic costumes that didn't breach copyright laws. This costume could just as well have been tucked away on that set, meant as a pirate or period-soldier costume until Xander's inspiration ran away from him. Also, minor kudos to the person or two who inevitably _did_ already use this joke as a YAHF.

* * *

 **Too Much Colour:  
Redshirted!**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

 _The trial was completed, and the sentence was passed. There was no appeal. There was no need. It wasn't as if it was considered a terribly awful sentence, anyway._

 _After all, they had not committed one of the hard crimes. They were not thieves, or pirates, or murderers. Sentences for those offences were harsh and generally fatal. Hard miscreants inevitably died._

 _No, their crime was one of not fitting in. Of rebelling, or being peculiar in some way, or speaking out against the crown. And for those "soft crimes", the punishment was considered just, appropriate, and, most of all, lenient._

 _Well, at least it was considered lenient by those who fit in with society, those who got to live out the rest of their lives above-ground._

 _Living in the light of the sun, however, was a privilege that had just been stripped from them. All of them were taken to a portal, a one-way, permanent teleporter, and thrown in._

…

He comes to a strange town, unlike any he has seen before. Stars in what for all the world looks like a cloudy evening sky show him that something has happened that the soldiers who just threw them into the portal were not expecting.

The town goes on for what looks like miles in all directions. A neat road, formed from a hard, black rock-like substance, stretches on either side of him to nearby intersections, continuing onward in a network of paths that goes on far beyond the range of his vision in this dim light.

It is not actually that hard to see, though it takes a little while for his eyes to adjust to the glaring, ill-spaced night lighting that the town uses. As his eyes do adjust, he sees that he is in what looks like a residential district of some sort. Homes of one and two stories line the road, most separated from it by an expanse of lawn or garden and many with a well-crafted fence. Each property has a wide path leading from the road to an outlying section of the building, though most of the paths are a smooth off-white – the same pallid shade as the yard-wide strips bordering the black path.

He is standing in the middle of a carriageway. He hurriedly moves onto the nearest white strip, which feels just as hard under his boots.

There are people too – many of them screaming and panicking as they're chased by child-sized monsters! Most of the people pay little attention to him, but one woman, a young redhead in a revealing outfit, catches sight of him and quickly approaches.

Sadly, so does one of the small monsters. COMBAT!

—ox-oxo-xo—

Fortunately, the monster must have been suffering from very poor morale. It backed away and fled the moment he raised his sword at it. A sword that he is certain he did not have in his possession when he was thrown through the portal.

The strange spirit – a spirit that's even more intangible than usual – calls him Zander, or possibly Sander or Xanda, he isn't sure. He's pretty sure his name is John and always has been, but this "Willow" is adamant.

Something strange and unexpected is definitely going on. That much is blindingly obvious. The edged weapon, a steel short sword of reasonable quality, would have been confiscated as a matter of course – after all, who lets their prisoners carry blades? Same with the bronze shield looped onto his left forearm. The Empire's soldiers sent them into Exile with nothing but the clothes on their backs. (And their purses, food-bags and a basic pack-harness each – all empty, and now all missing.)

That's another thing. There is no 'them'. John had not been alone as he waited to say goodbye to the surface world. There had been others, all scheduled for the same fate. He had secured agreement from those others that they would team up, as they all used the provided scraps of leather and hemp to make their pack-harnesses. After all, they were going into a virtually unknown situation. Safety in numbers, right?

Well, he is here. And they aren't.

He is here, in an unfamiliar land of some sort, which is above-ground. He doesn't know much about the place where he was meant to be sent, but he does know it's not above-ground.

John would almost think he had lucked out, if not for all the rampaging monsters.

—ox-oxo-xo—

Soon after, their impromptu party increases by one. He is not particularly optimistic about her addition.

The new member, called Buffy by the spirit, is a noble of some sort. Whatever her actual name is, she certainly has the bearing of a noble, as well as the dress. He knows a little of noble fashion, but nowhere near enough to tell whether the dress is 'in season' for wherever it was she came from. Certainly, it appears impractical enough for the more ridiculous outfits he has seen young noble ladies sporting as they went about their business.

It is clear that "Buffy" is completely unprepared for anything like this.

John had been unarmed, dispossessed, with no money or even food to his name. But at least he knew SOMETHING was supposed to happen. He had been prepared, mentally and as physically as he could manage.

Willow is in something of a panic. Understandable – one minute she's a young woman escorting younger children on a festival outing of some kind, the next minute she's a spirit watching monsters attack everybody. But he has to admit that she seems to be dealing well with the situation despite that. He gets the distinct impression that while this situation is extremely weird, she has seen things almost as weird before and lived through them. And maybe she has, if she's a resident of this town and all this is an example of what happens in it.

At least she has a basic plan. Get to some house which the noble girl is carrying a key to, for whatever reason. Once there, contact an older and wiser associate, and tell him about what has happened. Follow the man's instructions. Straightforward and easy to understand.

The noble, though? She has not even the standard lessons in spell theory that children in the Empire undergo as a matter of course, something even children of the magic-hating Anama church on the Isle of Bigail are not permitted to miss out on. She seems reluctant to even believe in the existence of magic! And apart from basic training in letters and numbers and perhaps how to run a household, it seems she has learned little else if the rant about growing up to marry a baron being her purpose in life is anything to go by.

Willow is some kind of spirit, unable to touch anything. But she is familiar with, and knowledgeable about this town called Sunnydale, and at least everything is just as unable to touch her. He is cast adrift in an unfamiliar and hostile place – fortuitously, though, he has a weapon and knows his way around it. This "Buffy" is as lost as he is and even more confused, has nothing to defend herself with, and wouldn't know how to use it if she did.

Oh, and she's flighty and empty-headed. And has fainted at least once.

Safety in numbers? Sure. But the noble isn't going to be of any more help than maybe a set of eyes to keep watch for threats. And that is generously assuming she even knows how to do THAT much.

—ox-oxo-xo—

A small portrait of uncommon clarity, followed by a glance in a mirror in the home that Willow has led them to, proves if nothing else that the "Zander" the spirit keeps calling him is a dead ringer for John. Certainly he looks more like Zander than the noble looks like Buffy, though that might be the wavy brunette hair.

He talks to the noble lady.

"Name?"

She stares at him. He belatedly realises that it's the first word he has spoken since he came to this town. Though to be fair, Willow has made up for it by speaking A LOT.

The noble gathers her wits and straightens. "I am Lady Elizabeth, good sir. And you are?"

He formally introduces himself, and they speak for a short while. She is the only daughter of a baronet, landed gentry of a place called England. England is the seat and ruling kingdom of the "British empire" where she comes from. When he asks, she assumes (correctly) that he is from a distant land with different ranks of nobility and tells him a baron is the lowest rank of lord.

John has never heard of any of these names, but the spirit interrupts to tell them that those lands do exist in their world. Or rather, they DID – the Empire now calls itself a "Commonwealth", and is all but broken besides. The Queen (not "Empress" unlike Emperor Tyrant… ahem, Hawthorne) of the "United Kingdom", of which England is still the most powerful land, rules as nought but a figurehead, and her "Prime Minister" runs the government with the aid of dozens of like-minded people and a host of "public servants" (which sounds like a bunch or courtiers with a more friendly job title). The details are complicated and his head hurts trying to comprehend them.

She is interrupted anyway as a large, sharp-taloned paw smashes the glass viewing panel on the front door. The monster withdraws and flees after he slashes at it with his sword.

Willow seems to have given up the more detailed explanation as pointless by the time they have regathered themselves. She merely tells Elizabeth that they are in America, which was one of the Empire's more far-flung colonies at the time Elizabeth remembers but has since been independent for over two hundred years.

As for John… She is interrupted again before she can offer any guess as to his presence, this time by a high-pitched scream from the street.

—ox-oxo-xo—

It's times like this that he really wishes he'd gone for more magic training in his lessons. Something as simple as repeating the first-tier priest spell Minor Heal a couple times could have fixed this right up.

But no, instead he'd ignored his well of what the teaching mages insultingly called "Intelligence" in favour of swordplay.

The large, hairy monster that was chasing Cordelia had fled after a light taste of steel like all the other monsters he'd encountered tonight – but not before taking a swipe at him that he had not quite managed to block properly. It is only fortunate that the monster was weaker than its size suggested and its claws were fairly blunt.

A healer could have fixed his shoulder up in a few seconds. One of the other convicts he had been exiled with, he knows there was at least one who could cast priest spells, could have done the same. But he can not. Instead, he is stuck with an injured shoulder and honestly doubting he'll have the time to recover.

Willow is even more frantic than she's been for much of the evening, wringing her hands and repeatedly apologising for sending him to rescue "Cordelia". Elizabeth is at least making herself useful, helping him to pad and wrap his shoulder with the home's "first aid" supplies, with a respectably restrained amount of fuss over the blood. The party's newest member is…

As pretty as she is – and she is pretty, with her positively immodest (and enticingly damaged) clothing leaving not the slightest trace of doubt about that – there's no pretty way to describe it.

Cordelia is throwing a tantrum, screeching at the spirit over her perceived slight and tossing in a wide range of insults to boot. The personal nature of the insults makes it clear that the pair know each other from before whatever is going on happened. So does the source of the girl's offence. From what he can gather, Willow and Cordelia know and dislike each other, and Cordelia believes that Willow would rather John – or rather, "Xander" – wasn't wounded than Cordelia being saved.

John and Elizabeth trade a long-suffering look. Seems even the brainless noble can tell that this argument isn't helping matters.

The entrance of a pale, thin man from the back of the house interrupts the loud pair. Matters are again explained, this time to the man named Angel.

Unbelievably, Willow tells Angel and Cordelia in passing that John is a character from a "computer game", whatever a computer is. She can't say what game it is, only that it is an "old" game that Zander and someone named Jesse liked, and that Zander told her he picked out the costume because it happened to remind him of what he remembered one of the character "icons" looking like and thought it would be funny, and that her friend told her all that when he repaid her the ten "dollars" he'd borrowed to pay for the costume.

"I should've guessed the loser would go for something lame like that." Cordelia sneers. "Bet you wish you could save, you dweeb."

John stares, his mind still stuck on the spirit's completely ridiculous idea. Then he blinks, realises he's being insulted by the girl he just DID save, and flips her off. Only the newcomer's presence stops her from losing her temper again.

—ox-oxo-xo—

John stares down at the unconscious pirate with some distant satisfaction and an inexplicable sense of closure. …And also a great deal of pain.

That damn ruffian might not have been very skilled with his cutlass, but he has obviously had a great deal more practice wielding it in a combat setting than John did before this night. The fact that John had no choice but to assume that his opponent was another boy changed by his costume had hampered him in his fight as well. He could have stabbed the pirate early on, but held back from killing blows.

He needs to find a healer, or an inn, or even some more of that rather fine if non-magical "first aid". Any more combats like that, and he isn't going to walk away from them.

There is no healer available, and he doesn't have the gold to pay for an inn room even if they exist here and he can find one. At least more bandages are a possibility, if he can scrounge some up.

And at least Elizabeth is grateful for having her virtue saved, thanking him profusely.

Angel and Cordelia enter the alley. Elizabeth cries out and hides behind him.

Cordelia explains with exaggerated patience that Angel is a "good vampire". He has heard of vampires, a powerful type of undead monster that the histories said were stamped out of the Empire along with all of the other monsters many decades ago. He does not know if vampires, whether back in the Empire or here in Sunnydale, can be "good". But he does know that this one isn't hostile. That's enough for him not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Elizabeth looks to John, beseeching him for guidance.

He shrugs. "Friendly."

Elizabeth is easily convinced – more easily than he would have thought, given the way she'd fled the vampire's very presence the moment he revealed himself as no longer human – and shyly steps out to approach Angel. Her shyness doesn't look fear-induced, either.

He is surprised by that. But not all THAT surprised. The lady had been drawn to the classically handsome figure ever since they met. She's clearly eager to believe the best of him.

Of course, the touching scene is interrupted once more by a paradoxically huffing and puffing Willow. And she's brought company.

—ox-oxo-xo—

The barricade doesn't last for long. Neither does the fight. The blond vampire "Spike" came prepared, there's no more ground to flee to, and a dozen monsters all at once are simply too much for him and Angel. John doesn't even get the chance to change his tactics and go for lethal blows before the swarm of monsters tear him down and tear into him.

His last thought as he quickly bleeds out is that wherever the Empire meant to send him, would actually have been preferable to this hellish place.

And trapped deep beneath John's crumbling image, Xander's last thought is that Cordelia was right: he really DOES wish that he could have saved.

Or, y'know, not gone as a redshirrrr…

* * *

When Ethan Rayne resurfaced a couple weeks later, Willow and Buffy almost killed Ethan on sight, and Cordelia gleefully kicked him in the nuts. In fact, Willow was so incensed that she later followed Cordelia's example, then knocked the chaos mage out and sat on him rather than get caught up watching Angel's inner demon fight it out with Eyghon, just so he wouldn't get away like last time.

It took an hour to convince Willow to allow Giles to arrange for the Council to take Ethan away instead of murdering him out of hand. It took another three weeks before the furious, grieving redhead would speak to him.

It took nearly a decade for Rupert Giles to finally tell her just what he'd _actually_ done with Ethan Rayne. Not to mention how he'd disposed of the body afterwards.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** For those of you who haven't read any of my divergence fics: canon!Dark Willow, from 180-plus years in the future, is repeatedly attempting to change the circumstances of her past (and thus, prevent her preordained death in completing the time loop featured in BtVS Season 8) by meddling in what inevitably turns out to be a series of close but technically alternate timelines. She's done this many times before, and will do so many more times again. One thing she's learned though, is that she can't steer events as she'd like when too many Other beings are paying attention. As such, any YAHF-type divergence is doomed to fail, and useless for anything other than killing off Xander and/or any such characters who aren't protected by their Champion status, otherworldly connections, destinies or…hell, might as well be blunt and just call it plot armour.

But she still does it every so often, for stress relief and a hobby, as well as for the odd time it does also kills off Buffy, Cordelia and/or her sickeningly mousy younger self. After all, this is DARK Willow we're talking about.

…

Now, for the crossover: In 1993, Seattle programmer Jeff Vogel released an two-dimensional (top-down) RPG for the PC and Macintosh called "Exile: Escape From The Pit". Basic plot is, a party of anywhere from one to six misfits has been tossed into a massive network of underground caverns with no known way out, and now has to decide what to do next. The graphics are rough and were fairly basic even when the game was released over twenty years ago, but the game was a lot of fun. More recently, Exile and its two sequels (both of which had been released by Halloween 1997, which is part of why I used it) have been retooled and rebranded as the Avernum Trilogy games, which you may be more familiar with. The present-tense I went with for most of this chapter is a references to the game's many text-boxes. So is John's habit of only speaking single-word prompts when actually being quoted, as is the use of CAPITALS instead of _italics_.

The default first character's icon for the first Exile game is a red shirt and hat, black pants belt and boots, holding a sword in one hand and a round shield in the other – think a Robin Hood-type in red instead of green, minus the archery. Pretext to this is that 12-year-old Jesse or Xander bought the shareware version of the game for a dollar back when it came out, convinced Willow to hack the game for the registration codes as a challenge (which, being Willow, it probably wasn't), and both boys enjoyed playing it greatly until a year or two later when they discovered hormones. Meanwhile, the game has been mouldering away gathering dust in Willow's old computer… but that's for the omake.

Cue trip to Ethan's. Xander spots the costume and is bugged by it until he remembers what it reminds him of, reminisces over playing games with Jesse, borrows $10 from Willow until he can dash home and repay her from his road trip fund, and buys the costume out of sentimentality (read: Dark Willow playing Xander's Muse) and to play off the inevitable joke about the redshirt.

Oops – joke's on him.

In case you were wondering? John (the default first character's assigned name) was about as useful as you saw above: reasonably fit and flexible, decent with edged weapons, and not a complete novice at defence – but no magic and no other skills apart than a knack for disarming traps. Seriously, he was just lucky the costume came with a sword and shield that happened to kinda match the icon, because the default Lv.1 character wouldn't even have started with _that_ much. Xander ended up dying as a result of the game mechanic: John started with 20 HP, lost 4 to the monster chasing Cordelia, lost 11 more to Pirate Larry, and then lost HP in 1's and 2's until he hit 0 HP, lost more HP in one more tiny hit, and died. In Exile, with a party who can pick up the corpse (and hopefully the corpse's stuff) and hotfoot it to a priest, not _so_ much of a fuss – here, it's bye-bye Xander.

Next (and probably last): … Maybe just _enough_ colour? It'll be up in a couple days, and have a rather less grim ending for Xander. (So if you hate the Xander and just read this to enjoy his gratuitous death, you might want to skip that one.) In the meantime, feedback is much appreciated.


	2. This Would Never Happen

**Disclaimer:** Still not mine – _especially_ not the spiders. Refer first chapter.

 **Warnings:** _mild_ violence  & language, _moderate_ (BtVS) spoilers, _shameless_ in-jokes and munchkinry.

 **Summary:** This would never have happened. Ever. Just like the majority of YAHFs!

 **Pairings:** canon for timeframe, otherwise general.

 **A/N:** I do enjoy the occasional game(r)-type crossover with [insert fandom here], if they're well-done. (There _are_ a few, if not that many.) This is how _I'd_ do it – i.e., with game mechanics I actually know.  
…And you'll quickly realise why I _don't_ do it. But don't take my word on that – read for yourself!

* * *

 **Too Much Colour:**

 **Omake: …But you Luck out!  
(or, Let's Try That Again!)**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

…

Unbelievably, Willow tells Angel and Cordelia in passing that John is a character from a "computer game", whatever a computer is. She calls it "Exile: escape from the pit", which is apparently the story of what would have happened if John had gone to Exile with the others. (He takes note of the way she says "to Exile" as if it's a place, rather than his punishment.)

The spirit says that it is an "old" game that Zander and someone named Jesse liked, and that Zander told her he picked out the costume because it happened to remind him of what he remembered one of the character "icons" looking like and thought it would be funny, and that her friend told her all that when he repaid her the ten "dollars" he'd borrowed to pay for the costume. All at a very fast pace that leaves the others blinking.

"I should've guessed the loser would go for something lame like that." Cordelia sneers. "Bet you wish you could save, you dweeb."

John stares, his mind still stuck on the spirit's completely ridiculous idea. On the face of it, it sounds utterly impossible. But at this point, what does he have to lose if that's the case?

(Well, apart from his identity?)

Also, the way the scantily-clad girl just said "save", like it meant something different from the way he'd just saved HER…

He blinks, and addresses the spirit.

"Save?" he asks the spirit, pointing a finger at Cordelia.

Willow opens her mouth. Her eyes drop for a second on his wounded shoulder. Willow closes her mouth.

She starts pacing, her shoes clomping on the floor despite their intangibility as she starts muttering to herself. Most of it is too quiet for John to hear, but he does catch something about beginners, an editor, something being too simple, ghostly trumpets, and…alchemy?

"Alchemy?"

"Yeah, that MIGHT work…" she mutters. She clears her throat. "Tell me about the first alchemy potion."

He shrugs and rattles off the basic book description for Weak Poison that the trainer for Alchemy had him learn – its level, what it requires to make it, what it does.

"Next one up?"

He continues with the book-stats for Weak Strength Potion. John might not have been allowed to BREW any of these potions; his school trainers were unwilling to go to that much effort for those who weren't interested in learning it. But any student who'd passed out of the Empire's schooling program could recite this stuff word for word.

"What about the Fireball spell?"

Same deal – just because he didn't undergo the training in handling the volume of magic necessary for casting third-tier mage spells, doesn't mean he can't read the spell description word for word. Including tier level, standardised spell-cost and yardage. He's a little impressed at how much she seems to know about his schooling, but he is getting impatient and so are the others.

"Um, okay. I think you might have the Spell Library in there. And the Alchemy help file. So, um, maybe?"

Everybody stares at her. Mostly because no-one has any idea of what she just said.

"I guess it's worth a try. Repeat after me – "save game," she gestures at him with a waved hand, "Zander – spell that out, just in case…"

"Save game Zee Ay En Dee Eee Arr…"

The spirit twitches and forcibly clamps her mouth shut as he spells out Zander's name. "Full stop, Ess Ay Vee. Then say Okay."

He finishes her instructions, feeling inexplicably better even if nothing appears to happen.

They all wait with bated breath… for all of two seconds before Willow demands, "Did y—"

* * *

 _Deep within the depths of his own head, Xander crowed with pure geekish glee as the Exile Editor's 'Load Game' screen presented itself to him. "Now that's more like it! Oh praise be for Willow, for the nerd is mighty!"_

 _After all. If she hadn't managed to split off from Buffy and come home to catch up with him sooner that he thought she would… If she hadn't snuck up and caught him while he was still looking over the first Exile game on Willow's old computer – the one that Ira still used to do his accounts, and either hadn't bothered with deleting or simply didn't know about his daughter's copy of the game… If she hadn't recognised the icon when he was looking at the file with all the party icons – and then remembered the very first game that Xander and Jesse had convinced her to hack for the registration codes… If she hadn't reminisced with him about the good times the boys used to have playing video games with her while her parents were out of town, trying not to cry all over him at the mention of Jesse and only mostly succeeding… If he hadn't gone looking through one of his old save files so that Willow could calm down without being embarrassed, and if she hadn't pointed out a few things she remembered doing with the code and then tried to explain them…_

 _Well. He wouldn't have the slightest clue what he was doing now, would he? It had been two years since they played this one. There were sequels. And then they'd discovered the joys of seeing naked ladies, and Willow had not been so eager to join them then._

 _But that was okay, Xander magnanimously decided. He'd got used to disappointment long ago. And – Xander winced, looking over John's pitiful Lvl.1 stats as the real world slowed to a crawl – she just might have saved his life._

 _Or let him save his own life. Or something._

 _To be honest, he didn't know how useful all this was going to be. Any tinkering would only go into effect if John loaded the changed game file, and Willow didn't think of having him save two games and try to load the earlier one. (It was one of the less obvious ways his Willow acted when she panicked, forgetting important details.) So if Xander couldn't reload from here, wherever here was – and he wasn't going to try that until after he'd adjusted the save file to skew the odds – then the only way reloading was going to happen was if John died._

 _And John was wearing Xander's body. So Xander was the one who would be dying._

 _Yeah. All things being equal, Xander would_ really _rather not die._

 _But in the meantime, and just in case…_

 _'_ H.P. up to 200 from 20, S.P. from 0 to 99, up Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence to 20 apiece from 7, 6 and 1. …And ain't it a laugh, the way those wacky mages officially got it called Intelligence? Lessee, Edged skill up from 7 to 20, same from zip for Bash, Pole, Archery, Thrown and Defense too. Pity there's no Unarmed skill… All 7 levels for Mage and Priest Spells. Mage Lore and Alchemy to 20 – probably not that useful, but hey, I'm jacking everything else up so why not? Item Lore only goes up to 10, but okay. Disarm Traps, Lockpick, Assassination, Poison and Luck – all maxed out at 20. Spells/Items next… _'_

 _There was no handy-dandy option to just learn all spells, so he manually selected all of them one by one. Items was a little trickier, what with not being able to remember what some of them were and there were no descriptions. But after picking out a Magic Sword and having it appear in John's third inventory slot, he did find that he could identify it._

 _'_ …Can't discard, though. Curses! All right, ten slots…well, nine now. Heh, at least a Magic Sword doesn't suck… _'_

 _He quickly added a Magic Shield, Magic Helm and Magic Leather (it sounded the most comfortable to wear, and he remembered something about having to watch out for Encumbrance). Resurrection Balm just in case it worked on Willow, though maybe it was best not to muck about with that one… '_ Meh, get it anyway! _' He remembered Ambrosia being total healing and nothing else sounded right, so he got one. Rings of Protection and Regeneration, which turned out to be Gold rings when he went back and checked. Nice!_

" _2 slots left. What else…?" Xander muttered 'aloud'._

 _He was… honestly, he was pretty set! Maxed stats and spells, great equipment, healing and something to maybe resurrect Willow if John thought of it. He might've used the EXP-cheat, but that only actually worked after killing the next monster, and John wasn't killing children so there was probably no point._

 _Although… Giggling evilly, he added two Demonslayer greatswords to the last two slots. Who knew? they might stick around afterwards…_

 _Xander saved and was about to exit when he remembered one more thing he should probably check on._

 _It turned out that upping HP had healed John, but he selected 'Heal the Party' anyway. Then added 10,000 gold just for the hell of it – as well as 10 food just in case John got hungry and started starving – he couldn't exactly recall how that game mechanic worked._

 _Right,_ now _he was done. He saved and exited._

…

…

… _AAAAAAAARGH!_

 **Load Game. ZANDER . sav is selected. Load…**

* * *

"—ou feel a…ny… …thing? Er, never mind – obviously you did…" Willow whimpers.

Everyone in the room gapes at John. He doesn't notice, too busy poking at his bandaged shoulder and wondering why it suddenly doesn't hurt any more.

"Where did those big swords come from?" Cordelia asks. Her eyes are practically popping out of their sockets.

John looks. Sure enough, he has a pair of identical two-handed swords wrapped and tied together and lashed to the pack-harness on his back (the one that disappeared when he came here!). Glad he was seated on a stool to dress his wound and therefore doesn't have to wrestle the unwieldy pack out from the furniture's innards, he removes and examines the pack's contents.

The first and most obvious new find is looped through an outer strap on the pack: a glittering shield, with faint runes in the edging he's learned to recognise…though for the life of him he can't recall WHEN he learned it.

The next is, obviously, the identical pair of greatswords. Twin examples of the finest in Empire swordsmithing, with their own identical set of runes etched into each blade. Along with a name in gold wire embedded into each hilt.

"…Demonslayer."

"Hah! It DID work!" the spirit crows. "So, did you load game?" Then she pales. "Oh no, did you DIE? We didn't all die and you came back to try again, did we? What happened? Or will happen? Or might will maybe happen…" She trails into indecipherable babbling in her panic.

Jon helplessly shrugs as he puts aside the greatswords and digs deeper in the pack, finding several smaller items. That relief he felt as he "saved" is back and stronger than before, but apart from that he has no clue what just happened. He does smile, though, when he examines the neatly folded leathers rolled up and shoved in a steel helm – like the new shield and sword, both bear the signs of magic being used to enhance them.

Though it does bug him. How did he suddenly GET all this stuff? Let alone suddenly have the item lore to know what it all is?

…Oh well.

He sets about equipping his new acquisitions – though he leaves the Demonslayers off to the side with his original gear, preferring to keep his capacity to block. In so doing, John notices a muffled clink in the side pockets of his pack and finds two potions he is very happy to see. Though he's not so sure about the Resurrection Balm – after all, even if he does know the spells for raising the dead it isn't like they're in his party, so—

Hang on a minute.

He DOES know the spells for raising the dead.

Come to think of it…

"Bless."

The second-tier priest spell takes hold, leaving a minuscule dent in magic reserves he didn't know he had. He starts giggling.

—ox-oxo-xo—

John stares down at the unconscious pirate with some distant satisfaction and an inexplicable sense of closure.

Though given how right Willow has been about things? (Well, most things – it's not her fault the spell that caused everything to go wrong tonight cut off the "phone lines" she had been counting on to contact their elder compatriot Giles. Plans do go wrong due to unexpected circumstances.) Maybe that inexplicable closure isn't so inexplicable? Maybe it's Zander who appreciates the closure.

John smiles down at Elizabeth as she thanks him profusely. (Yes, she's probably Buffy like Willow keeps saying – but she clearly thinks of herself as Elizabeth, and why set the lady off?) The fight had been anything but; a couple sidesteps and backing up a bit to draw the pirate away from Elizabeth, followed by a parry and swipe with the flat of the blade to put him down. He could have killed him half a dozen times in the barely ten seconds they exchanged blows, but it's best to assume the monsters he meets tonight are normally innocent children until he is told otherwise.

—ox-oxo-xo—

The barricade doesn't last for long. Neither does the fight. The blond vampire "Spike" came prepared, there's no more ground to flee to, and a dozen monsters all at once are simply too much for him and Angel.

Well. They would have been, if not for his second absurdly unlikely turn of good luck. Or maybe third, now that he thinks about it – John does recall Willow wondering if he "died and came back to try again".

The presence of potential non-party allies does complicate things. If he could be sure they were all part of his party, he could have just cast Major Blessing as they broke in, followed by Ravage Enemy and Group Fear. But casting spells that affected all non-allied targets like that would not help the others. So instead he casts Protection, wades into the mass of smaller monsters, dodges and blocks in desultory fashion for a while before casting Protection again. Now he is pinned down as they fruitlessly strive to break through his invulnerability, mistakenly believing him to be subdued.

Even now he can strike at this Spike whenever he wishes; the vampire is close enough to cast a Kill spell at him. He holds off only because if Angel – who is also pinned, defeated like John was by the need to avoid slaying their captors – and his sheer speed in combat is anything to go by, he does NOT want to tip off the hostile vampire. Give it enough time to dodge, and it might just retaliate by striking down one of the others before John or Angel can end it.

Spike begins a standard evil monologue as he approaches Elizabeth. That's both getting too close and absorbed enough; John takes a quiet breath.

"Ki—"

…

Xander blinked as he found himself under a pile of small, crying children, his mouth falling silent without the direction that had disappeared with the costume spell's breaking. He wiggled so that he was sitting upright and did his best to calm down the confused kiddies while Buffy left her wig in her attacker's hand and started waling on Spike with unrestrained enthusiasm.

Eventually the humbled bleach-blond annoyance did escape, Angel picked himself up and went to Buffy, and the sickening display of romantic she-human/he-corpsicle relations picked up right where it left off. Xander felt like complaining, but restrained himself on the basis that he could perfectly well do that later – on the other hand, the kids needed to be returned to their parents.

Listening to Cordelia bitch about being ignored, though? That was hilarious.

After a minute or two, he had all the children in lines, ready to be led back to the high school. Xander retrieved and sheathed the Magic Sword with a flourish, repressing the substantial feel of the enhanced blade in his hand as just one more thing to be brought up later.

"Now!" He comically scratched his chin. "Where were we?"

Xander did call a brief stop at a convenience store on the way. The little monsters might have swarmed the unattended store like locusts in their (satisfyingly successful) search for free candy, but somehow he doubted the owners would prosecute. And hopefully the Magic Helm did help with the whole 'hiding his face' issue.

(Bless: higher attack/defence on party-member target. Lv.2 Priest.  
Major Blessing: blesses, hastes, mildly poisons weapons of all party members. Lv.7 Mage.  
Ravage Enemy: curses (opposite of bless, no holy damage), slows all non-party members in vicinity. Lv.6 Mage.  
Group Fear: lowers morale of all non-party members in vicinity, making them more likely to flee. Lv.6 Mage.  
Protection: raises magic resistance of all party members, makes one party-member target invulnerable for a short period. Lv.7 Mage.  
Kill: heavy magic damage on one target. Lv.6 Mage.)

* * *

… **And Again?**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

… _AAAAAAAARGH!_

 **Load Game. ZANDER . sav is selected. Load…**

…Well, at least he'd got away with the _de facto_ convenience store robbery. That was something. So he made sure to do it again as he escorted the kids back to Sunnydale High and their parents.

Said parents were a little suspicious even with Sunnydale Syndrome stretching their credulous natures to the limit. But that was easy enough to defuse.

"We may have lost our candy-bags in the chaos and mayhem, but never fear!" He stopped and dug out a handful of candy from the long harness-mounted pack that was still mounted on his back (and never mind that he hadn't started the night out with that pack, or that two extremely valuable potions were still sitting in the other side pocket). "Because we _did_ save the candy." He raised his voice. "For the candy!"

The kids cheered and brandished their candy. And so Halloween was saved. Especially for Xander Harris, who avoided detention this time because Snyder had just enough trollish cunning not to blame him in front of so many satisfied parents.

Willow eventually made her way back from the house she'd 'died' in front of, falling in beside Xander as he left the grounds. The silence stretched between them, weighing down on the old friends like a weighty thing of awkwardly weighted heaviness.

Xander really hoped he wouldn't have to get used to this.

"Wanna sleep over tonight?"

"Yeah, sure. The 'rents are three sheets to the wind already. They won't mind."

The silence got heavier.

"How many times?" Willow whispered miserably.

"Twice now. I'll be saving game again when we get to your place, so ask me again afterwards. Y'know, just in case it still works."

"Do you know what happened?" Her voice is trembling so badly that even his extensive training in Willowbabble almost fails him.

"Well you were right the first time, I died the once. Back at the warehouse. Damn game mechanics – when you're weak, they really do play against you." From previous experience, Xander was pretty sure there was no way to do this gently.

"A-and the sss-sec…" Willow choked up.

Xander sighed ruefully. "A little after Buffy's birthday next year. Hey, you got any idea how to kill a demon that can't be harmed by 'any weapon forged'?" A short pause. "And no, the Demonslayers won't work. We tried that last time – no luck."

He was actually kinda proud for Willow – she got all the way back to her house before breaking down and crying all over him.

—ox-oxo-xo—

By the time Willow recovered enough to think about his question, Xander had jumped onto Ira Rosenberg's computer, opened up a Word document and typed a bunch of notes on the first Exile Editor's mechanics. He also added several important points, and several more questions to ask his friends about the near future, that he thought might be important to remember.

After all, it had happened once – even after the spell was over. What it it happened again? What if it happened years from now? Best to have something to jog his memory, and there was just too much stuff to try explaining things to Willow.

Especially the thing with Angel's soul curse and Ms. Calender being a gypsy. He'd truly like to believe Willow would trust him, but with _this much_ on the line… He could always just explain after trying to save and hold out hope he was worrying about nothing.

Willow sniffled on his lap while the printer hummed and buzzed in the background.

"No weapon forged?"

"Nope. Not even the Demonslayers."

The blotchy-faced redhead frowned, her thought patterns sprinting along paths he could have taken hours to plod down. If he was lucky. Good old Willow. "…Multiverse theory, right?"

Fortunately, he did have that slight run-up. " _Comic_ multiverse theory, right? 'Cause sure, I might've ended up being bearded-lady evil – but! there's _no way_ that _any_ Xander _any_ where had _any_ sexual relations of the foursome variety with that vampire of the large forehead, along with his daughter and grandson. Right?"

He cringed for comic effect as Willow gaped at him.

"…Right?" he squeaked.

Willow crammed her face into his shoulder to muffle an attack of the giggles. Meanwhile the printer finished up with a loud grinding noise and fell silent. Grinning at two jobs well done, Xander scooped up the papers and grabbed a paperclip from the desk drawer.

Something else he hoped he wouldn't have to get used to: finding the perfect moment to drop the perfectly mind-boggling line in. But for right now, it was just fine!

(Yes, he knew about multiverse theory – the idea that everything happened somewhere. That both Demonslayers failed to harm the Judge meant that _some_ one, _some_ where had forged them. Just because the magical greatswords _appeared_ to come out of nowhere, didn't mean they really did.)

"Hah—heeheehee…" Willow regathered herself and cleared her throat. "How about explosives?"

"Explosives, you say?"

He smiled. Then grinned. Then started cackling maniacally. Then was repeatedly slapped on the shoulder until he stopped.

"So," she eventually asked. "What are you printing anyway?"

"Ask me in a minute," he replied.

"Why."

"Hmm, how to put this? Ooh – stand up first." He led her out into the middle of the room. "How about: save game Ex Ay En Dee Eee Arr One fullstop Ess Ay Vee. Okay."

"Okay. Did it wo—"

* * *

… **Again-Again?**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

… _AAAAAAAARGH!_

 **Load Game. XANDER1 . sav is selected. Load…**

"—rk this ti… all right, this is just getting silly!"

Willow stepped away to wrestle off the heavy pack-harness that had just appeared out of nowhere on her back. Xander burst out laughing, taking off his own suddenly-full pack. He laughed harder after reaching into a pouch on his belt and pulling out dozens of little aspirin-sized pellets of pure gold.

"Heh-heh… Oh Wills, you h-have no idea how right you are-hah-hah…!" he managed to get out between laughs.

This time it took several minutes for the two of them to calm down – Xander from his laughing fit, and Willow from her bout of utter nerdish squeeing over being able to recognise every single item in her inventory. Well, Willow calmed down first. Then she lost patience and threw a Spark at him.

"So," she said when he sat up, "we're your party now?"

"Yup – you, Buff, G-man," he pulled a face, "…and Cordelia."

She stopped. "…Cordelia?"

"Yep. I think it's because she was with us tonight."

"But… Giles? What about Angel?" she protested.

"Hey, Giles was with us – well, he was involved at least. No Angel 'cause… well. At this point in my life I honestly didn't think of him as 'party'. Same with Ms. Calender – they're not really involved with all of us, just with Buffy or Giles," he answered carefully.

She absorbed that statement. "…You died again, didn't you?"

"Twice now, I just used the same save file. Though, thanks for that explosives idea – the pipe-bomb worked a treat. Graduation turned out to be something else needing big booms to fix – that killed me the first time. Second time… well, that's what this," he picked up the paper-clipped pages and waved them at Willow, "was for. Though it turns out, one of the Key Items available in the post-Halloween Editor is almost as good. Just a bit more general, and fewer questions."

Willow stared at him.

"…Oh yeah. I reached my fifties. This is a reminder in case I forgot anything."

"…Oh."

Willow fainted.

Xander stared at his unconscious best friend.

"Well. At least she didn't notice her clothes don't fit any more yet." He thought about that. "Crap. I'd better call Buffy. This might've happened to her, too…"

It had. Turned out, Buffy had been eating not _quite_ enough for a while – all part of the in-vogue diet. Though Angel was there and to all reports was highly appreciative of the slight but noticeable cup-size increase, and telling her he had several pounds of gold to help pay for her replacement clothes did the rest to calm her down.

Cordelia, though? She could go screw herself before he paid for _her_ shopping bill. He had his own shopping to do anyway. He just hoped the gold exchange was open on a Saturday. And that Buffy didn't get too frisky with Angel over the free boob-job…

…

Spike watched on with bewilderment as his minion left with a note clutched in one hand and one of his sire's 'presents' in a big burlap sack slung over one shoulder. Drusilla had made the minion read the note over carefully, to get the instructions just right. Go to such-and-such place, climb to such-and-such window on upper floor, open window with big stick, toss sack onto bed from outside so's it doesn't bounce off – don't get caught or make noise, leave people alone…

He seriously wondered what the bloody hell went through his Dru's mind sometimes.

Not this time, though. Dru had been unusually straightforward about why she was getting the hell out of Sunnydale and taking him with her… at least by her understanding of 'straightforward'. It took one of his newer, younger minions to translate the gist of it for him.

He wasn't one for these new-fangled 'computer games'. Not enough _real_ violence in 'em. But he knew enough to figure out that when one of the Slayer's pals suddenly grew the power to come back in time over and over until he finally succeeded in offing you, it was time to leave and go do something else. Thousand to one chance, sure – but when he had ten thousand free tries lined up no matter _what_ you did? Well sod _that_.

'Sides, Dru's 'Miss Edith' had also happened to mention there might be _another_ , easier Slayer running round. And who knew, draining a Slayer might do the job and get her back up to strength. Even just good feeding somewhere else would get her there eventually. Maybe South America…

Pity about the Slayer here, but what the hell – they all had death-wishes anyway. It was a matter of time.

* * *

By the sixth time Xander had replayed his entire life, pretty much the whole pantheon of Others had got the memo Drusilla had and backed off from the looping realm – their last collective act being to organise the terrible, terrible death of one Jeff Vogel (because they were vindictive little shits like that). It was bad enough when random chaos gave Xander limited access to a life-editor, especially when any chain of reality-altering circumstances that left him powerless automatically triggered his own personal load-realm – no, _now_ he was getting into the supernatural equivalent of programming and _no_ Other-class entity wanted to see what he could do to them with that kind of knowledge.

Well, except the First Evil. Considering it had equivalent aspects in every single reality among that section of the multiverse, and adding in the fact that it learned everything Xander knew every time he died…

Hey, reputations for omniscience had to come from _somewhere_. Why _not_ crib a big bunch of dry-runs to feed the legend? True, Xander managed to block the First from his life-experiences after the seventy-fifth time or so and erase it out of the entire realm by his three-hundredth. But that was still an epic amount of knowledge…

Besides, he'd be getting his come-uppance in due course.

"Yggdrasil, you say? Well, I _was_ getting kinda bored – all right, you got my attention. Tell me more!"

A/N: That's right, I went there.  
(Spark: the weakest offence mage spell, does mild magical damage to one target. Lv.1 Mage.)

* * *

 **Omake: "You want the truth?"**

 **Summary… and disclaimer:** Quote is the property of whoever had Jack Nicholson say it and then filmed him saying it. Big enough clue for you?

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

Xander sighed with exasperation at his friends' array of expectant faces. "Look guys. I know you wanna know a bunch of cool future stuff, but the truth is…actually, I got an idea." He stood up. "Wills, stand over there. Giles over there, Cordy over here, Jenny just here, Buffy in Giles' office, and Angel in the stacks."

He waited until everyone had gone where he directed them. Then he raised his voice.

"Now I'm going to walk over to each of you, and while I'm there I'm going to tell you one thing that happened to one of the others. There won't be any context to let you work out how it happened, though – just that it did happen. And please, _please_ keep in mind that there is no guarantee it will happen this time. In fact, I'm going all out to prevent some of it.

"You're going to look me in the eyes when I tell you, so you can see if you _really_ think I'm lying. And after I'm done telling you, I want you to think about what I told you and ask yourself three things." The _de facto_ time-traveller held up a hand, counting off on his fingers. "One: Do you _really_ want to know how it happened? Two: What do you think the reaction will be if you tell them? And three: If I've got that kind of dirt on _them_ , what do you think I've got on _you_?"

Xander was gratified to see some increasingly nervous faces. "Now…"

First was Angel. "Buffy boinked Spike. Repeatedly." Who gagged audibly at the mental imagery.

Next was Buffy. "Willow boinked a girl in college. And loved it. And decided she was a lesbian from that day forth. And never touched a man again." Who stared bug-eyed at him as he walked off.

Next was Willow. "Giles boinked Mrs. Summers. On the back of a patrol car. Twice. There was mention of handcuffs being involved…" Who crammed both hands over her mouth and started vibrating in place.

Next was Giles. "…You know, I'm telling the others about one of them boinking someone horribly embarrassing? Well I can't do that for Ms. Calender – because a vampire killed her and left her in your bed right at the point where she would've boinked you." Who staggered back into his chair, face paler than Angel's.

Next was Ms. Calender. "So, Angel had a prophesy child. Cordelia changed that baby boy's nappies. And then boinked him not even a year later. And got pregnant." Whose eyebrow raised as high as it could go.

And finally, Cordelia. "So, Angel's sire Darla got resurrected and turned again. Then Angel boinked her. And got her pregnant." Who looked at him like he had gone mad.

Xander walked back to the table in the middle of the room and sat down. He raised his voice again. "Oh, and in case you were wondering who _I_ boinked? St. Anyanka, the thousand-plus year-old vengeance demon, patron of scorned women. Only, I didn't just boink her – we got engaged, I left her at the altar, and then I boinked her again."

Cordelia snickered as the six people came back to the table.

"An interesting thing about that prophecy that the Master was going to kill Buffy? It was self-fulfilling – and so's a lot of what I just told you. So now I ask you all: do you _really_ want me to start hauling skeletons out of the closet, when their original owners haven't even vacated them yet?"

Six people shook their heads.

"Smart move. And now for your collective peace of mind, the Cliff Notes on that context…" He pointed at Angel. "Massive emotional trauma," then at Buffy, "sexual repression that's grown out of," at Willow, "drugged chocolate," at Giles, "Angelus," at Ms. Calender as he watched her flinch, "possession," at Cordelia, "absolute despair," and finally at himself, "and a vision of me murdering her with a frying pan by one of her old victims."

Then Xander stopped, and raised a finger.

"Oh, and also? Ravage Spirit!"

At which point Skip phased into view and started screaming blue murder in the corner. A short bit of work involving a Demonslayer-wielding Buffy and three more Ravage Spirits, and a big sticky mess was the unsurprising result.

(Ravage Spirit: does massive damage to one demonic target. Lv.7 Priest.)

* * *

 **Omake: A Different Kind Of G.I.F.T.…**

 **Summary:** Hey, just be glad I didn't go for the hot-springs trope.

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

"Sorry for the delay, Dawn," Xander said, casually kicking Doc off the platform on his way past. Ravage Spirit was just that useful, in a world where almost everything supernatural was at least technically demonic. "Hang on a tick…"

Dawn looked over at the slowly expanding portal behind her while Xander cut her loose with a Magic Sword. "Um, really wanna hear good things about shutting that thing Xan…"

"Yeah, no sweat," he assured her, putting away his blade and handing her a dishcloth. They carefully walked back to the other end of the platform. "Wipe up some blood and hand it back?"

He took the bloody cloth and handed her a familiar corked bottle.

"It's Ambrosia, so drink up. That portal stays open till the blood stops flowing, so I'll just toss this through after you're healed up and we'll be done. Well, except for…" Xander stopped and stared at the portal.

More specifically, he stared at the several dozen dog-sized spiders that were jumping out of it and scuttling onto the platform with high-pitched 'whee!' noises. They all ran over to the top level of the tower where Xander and Dawn were standing, leaping about and babbling away to each other in excited tones.

He got scared.

Then he shook himself and walked out to the end of the platform. In the meantime, he looked down at where Buffy and Glory were beating the crap out of each other. "HEY, GLORIFICUS!"

"Can't you see I'm busy you little monkey, WHAT?" her voice drifted up.

"YOU KNOW THOSE TWO DEMON LORDS THAT KICKED YOU OUT?"

Glory punched Buffy into a wall, then turned around and looked up at him. "YEAH? Hey wait a minute, where's my K—"

"…DID ONE OF THEM HAPPEN TO BE CALLED GRAH-HOTH?"

Glory stomped her foot and roared back, "DON'T YOU **DARE** SPEAK THAT ACCURSED BETRAYER'S NAME TO M—" At which point Buffy interrupted her by shoving her favourite Demonslayer through the back of Glory's head and decapitating the hell-goddess with a wrenching twist of the blade.

"…Huh." Xander tossed the rag into the portal, which promptly closed. He turned around and walked back across to where Dawn was trying not to freak out at the Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spider who was telling her she was cute. "…Whatever. All right – Dawn, and everyone whose name is 'spider', follow me!"

The G.I.F.T. spiders (who were indeed all named 'spider') saw no reason not to follow him and Dawn down to the ground level, where Glory's minions and fifty-odd mentally scrambled people awaited them. And there was much kicking of shins.

And also much rejoicing.

"Yay!"

Most of it by the spiders.

Xander looked around at the scene, as Buffy and Dawn embraced each other with complete disregard for the blood they were covered with (they were both fully healed and their clothes were ruined anyway), as Giles and Mrs. Giles ambled over with Jonathan and Amy to where Willow was fawning over Tara, who was bemusedly scratching the top of a cooing spider's head as they thronged around her. They really seemed to like Tara for some reason.

Yup, he was still scared.

" _Damn_ you, Jeff Vogel," he muttered, almost in tears. "Damn you to G.I.F.T. Spider Hell."

(Grah-Hoth: a major antagonist of Exile I and III, a demon prince and normally a resident of Exile's hell dimension.  
Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders: a friendly if childishly annoying race of monsters in all three Exile games. Apparently Jeff Vogel likes inflicting them on players in his table-top games, too. Bastard.)

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** …And now I'm leaving off, because at this point I may as well just grab a Kleenex and some baby lotion instead of more whiskey.


End file.
